Late Season Pickups: OF’s that Will Help your Fantasy Team
Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports
Well we have made it through the dog days of July folks. It is officially down the stretch time, and that means crucial late season pickups!
For hitters, the key to a good late season pickup is consistent at-bats. Often times fantasy managers get really excited about a guy who has a solid week and they jump all over him only to realize he had and unordinary spike in at-bats that week and is relegated to shared duty again.
Here are some of the most added players over the last week:
All of these players are over 20% add increase. Santana and Eaton are owned now in over 85% of fantasy leagues, so the chances are that they are no longer sitting in free agency for you. So we will throw them out as options.
That leaves us with 5 players on a list of hot adds. These are all qualified in the OF, and for late season pick ups I look to OF, because finding IF fill ins is not so easy.
- Danny Santana
This is probably the guy on this list that fades fastest. While he is batting leadoff and should be safe for playing time, he is playing for the Minnesota Twins and Joe Mauer is hurt. This does not bode well for his runs scored, and why have a lead off guy if he won’t score a bunch of runs?
- Josh Reddick
Reddick should be safe on playing time, especially now that he is swinging a hot bat. The one main knock on him is that he is batting so low in the A’s order because of his poor play for most of the season. Reddick is also not a very high batting average guy, so he is really due for some outs here.
The pop might be there rest of way but is it worth suffering in average?
- Yangervis Solarte
He should continue to play well in his new situation as he has very little competition for at-bats. This will serve to give him the confidence to play carefree, which puts him at his best. He is also batting second which will give him a good amount of opportunities each game.
Yangervis also played well early in the season but ran into a scarcity of at-bats with the Yankees. But now that he’s in a new place, I really like this kid rest of way.
- Tommy Medica
Medica Also seems to be in a steady role as the Padres everyday LF and batting 5th in their lineup.
I am never overly optimistic about a guy batting clean up or fifth for the Padres, though. Even with the fences at Petco drawn in for a few years now, it just doesn’t work out well.
I would nab this guy over Reddick and Santana but I think I would go for Solarte and Ackley before him.
- Dustin Ackley
Much like Reddick, is not a high batting average guy, so he may hurt you a little there in the coming weeks. He is also not a masher of any sort, but he just seems to be a solid contributor on a pretty solid team, so he feels like a safe play. Think of Ackley like Martin Prado lite.
I also like him to get a fair amount of RBI opportunities with Austin Jackson in front of him and should score with Robinson Cano behind him.
So there are 5 guys I like as late season pick ups. Some are obviously better than others, but whoever is left in your league should be a solid play.
My rankings are as follows:
- Solarte
- Ackley (barely)
- Medica
- Reddick
- Santana.
Additional Bright Spots: Santana qualifies at SS, which makes him attractive if you have a short stop go down. Also Ackley is eligible at 2B and 3B, so position flex is a huge plus there too!
Bonus grab: If they are all gone, go after Drew Stubbs. As long as Carlos Gonzalez is ailing he will get enough at bats to make a difference.